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Born in Crescent City, Florida, Asa attended the Cookman Institute in East Jacksonville, the only academic high school in Florida for African Americans. He was valedictorian of the 1907 graduating class. He would go on to organize and lead the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first mainly African-American labor union. He headed the March on Washington, and his continuous agitation eventually led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ban discrimination in the defense industries during World War II and President Harry S. Truman to end segregation in the armed services.

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